


the heavy weight of your dreams

by mollivanders



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Caretaking, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 09:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10716582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: “I’d never seen anything like that before,” she says. His mouth presses into a tight line, his arms following suit. “No,” he says. “But we were lucky.”She’d heard that before, usually from soldiers who didn’t know how to explain their escape or their skill.  Usually, she didn’t believe it when she heard it.Still, it was hard to contest his point.“Do you dream about it?” she asks and he finally looks at her. He doesn’t wake from nightmares like she does but he does sleep in a taut line, thrown out into war, and she wonders. She wonders how alone they both are.“All day,” he says.(She wraps her arms around him, holds him tight until he falls asleep.)





	the heavy weight of your dreams

**Author's Note:**

> A belated fill for RebelCaptain Appreciation Week - Day Four - Nerve. Also a fill for [this ask post](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/post/159767866689/i-wish-you-would-write-a-fic-where-jyn-really): _I wish you would write a Fic where Jyn really struggles with the aftermath of Scarif, but Cassian has done it all before and helps her through it._

She is trapped, and cannot get out. The bunker is too small, getting smaller, and she is breathing burnt dust from the battle outside.

(She is sixteen, with a loaded blaster.)

The nightmare ends with a start – she lurches upright, panting wildly, as Cassian wraps his arms around her and mumbles sleepy words in another language. The tilt of his voice soothes her, ever so slowly, and she lies back down, eyes peeled open.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, still holding her in the circle of her arms. She shakes her head violently, her hair landing in her face, and Cassian brushes it away.

(The gentlest touches make her start and she inhales, exhales in a forced rhythm.)

 _Better,_ Saw had said. _Keep trying._

She doesn’t sleep the rest of the night.

+

The days after Scarif pass in a blur. They are admitted and released from med bay in a blur, the Death Star plans are lost in a blur, and the Death Star is blown up in a blur. She spends her nights in a tight ball in the general quarters, too tired to be distracted by the snores and other sounds of her comrades.

It doesn’t mean the nightmares don’t come.

“You look like hell,” Bodhi tells her one day as they load another ship headed to the secret new rebel base. She doesn’t know if she’s going yet, but she doesn’t have any plans not to.

“Thanks,” she grumbles and tosses a cargo box into the ship with more force than necessary.

“Not sleeping?” Bodhi asks and he doesn’t meet her eyes when she looks at him. She pauses, taking him in, before gripping his arm in a friendly squeeze.

“Better,” she says.

(It’s not all a lie. It’s also not even close to the truth.)

+

The first night on the new base, she gets wildly, horribly drunk. The kid who blew up the Death Star is alright, but his _friend_ is a pain and a braggart and she knows the type too well. So she decides to beat him in a game.

Over her protests of going to the med bay, Cassian agrees to the compromise of her sleeping in her quarters if he can keep an eye on her. He leads her through the hallways of jaded soldiers singing drunken songs and she wishes she was sober enough to appreciate it.

Once inside, the low lights the only illumination, he leads her to the bed before dropping in a chair nearby. She stares at him, swaying on the edge of the cot, before patting the space next to her. His face clouds with confusion and she sighs. “You’re not sleeping in a chair. It’s fine. We’ll share.”

He raises his eyebrows, rocking in the chair. “I’ve slept in worse places,” he says, hesitation in his voice and she falls back onto the bed. “So have I,” she says and kicks her boots off. She’s almost proud of herself. “Thanks for offering though.”

Tentatively, he sits at the edge of the bed. “I’m not that bad off,” she adds, in case he thinks she’s going to throw up on him. “Just no sudden movements.” He smiles then and lies down next to her. There is at least a half foot between them but she is acutely aware of the length of him next to her.

“Sleep,” he says. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”

(When she wakes in the night, her voice hoarse from her nightmare, he’s there for that too.)

+

Somehow it becomes a pattern. She learns the code to his quarters and he doesn’t change them. She doesn’t change hers either. Sometimes the nightmares are more recent, sometimes not.

(Sometimes they all blur together.)

“I was eight,” she says one night, and his arms tighten around her. “I waited in the bunker for Saw for days.” She feels him nuzzle her and takes a deep breath. “I felt them at Scarif.”

“Your parents?” he asks, reaching for an answer, and she shrugs in a tiny movement, turning in his arms. “I felt something.” She pauses, chewing at her bottom lip before offering, “it feels like it it keeps coming back.”

He is quiet against her, his steady heartbeat a touchstone of reality. She doesn’t expect him to reply and shuts her eyes again, trying to make herself sleep again.

“So did I,” he says and she looks up at him, her body electrified as he adds, “felt something.”

“What did it feel like to you?” she asks, her voice a whisper for sacred spaces and Cassian shuts his eyes.

“It felt like peace.”

The thought bothers her, but she falls asleep again all the same.

+

Cassian is sent off on his first mission since Scarif a month after they’ve settled in to the new base and she wants to scream. It was too soon; it was all too soon, and yet she knows a month is more than any one of them is guaranteed.

_Keep trying._

She sneaks into his quarters at night, desperate for the memory of his touch, for the comfort he provides, and wakes in the middle of the night fighting back tears. It’s unfamiliar how much this hurts, how much loss she feels, and she wonders if the nightmares are a living thing, taunting her.

She takes a deep breath, inhaling the fading scent of Cassian from his sheets, and tries to sleep again.

(When he comes back, he looks worse than she remembered. He’s still the best thing she’s ever seen.)

“Will you come by tonight?” he asks without preamble and she stalls in the hallway, stealing a look at him. “If – yeah?” she answers, her heart skipping. _Please say yes, please say yes, please say –”_

“Good,” he says, his lungs releasing a heavy breath. “Good.”

Unsure but trying, she fumbles for his hand and squeezes it tight.

(He doesn’t jump away from her.)

+

One night when she wakes, he asks her if it’s always been like this.

“No,” she says, bending over her knees and pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes. Her back aches, her legs ache, and she’s fairly certain she woke running. The blast from the Death Star was so close – ever closer – and if they just ran fast enough –

His hand moves in a determined, calming circle on her back and she glances at him. He looks as exhausted as she feels and guilt stabs at her, wondering if she’s making it worse for him.

“You?” she asks and his eyes glance off of her.

“I sleep better now,” he says, guarded as always.

She leans into him.

_Keep trying._

+

“How much do you remember?” she asks one night on a gamble when he might be asleep. No such luck - his arm tightens around her back.

“Almost everything,” he says, voice rougher than usual, and she tilts her head up to look at him. The ashen look is slowly fading from his face but the ghost of it lingers.

“I’d never seen anything like that before,” she says. His mouth presses into a tight line, his arms following suit. “No,” he says. “But we were lucky.”

She’d heard that before, usually from soldiers who didn’t know how to explain their escape or their skill. Usually, she didn’t believe it when she heard it.

Still, it was hard to contest his point.

“Do you dream about it?” she asks and he finally looks at her. He doesn’t wake from nightmares like she does but he does sleep in a taut line, thrown out into war, and she wonders. She wonders how alone they both are.

“All day,” he says.

(She wraps her arms around him, holds him tight until he falls asleep.)

+

It helps knowing she is not alone in this. She was starting to think she’d lost her nerve, that her edges were washing off clean. It’s not something she’s comfortable with either way and she skirts the issue, tries to build them back up in one place while they crumble in another.

(They swap stories in pieces. Battles gone wrong, ambushed raids, fallen friends, and none of it to do with Scarif.)

A few months after their rescue, she comes back from a mission and stumbles across him in the hallways. He’s more battered looking than she remembers but not much worse for wear. She steals a brief touch, his stubble scratching at her fingers, and he smiles in an echo of her own.

“Glad you’re back,” he says and they part with easy assurance. She steps more calmly through the base, the weight of the mission slipping off her back.

Later, when they’re tugging off their boots and struggling over the blanket, the realization hits her that she’s _home_.

He’d said it of course. It had meant everything. But the Rebellion wasn’t a home in of itself and at the time – well, at the time, it was a promise. It was a dream.

This time, they’d built it.

(For once, they both make it through the night.)

__Finis_ _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladytharen](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com) on Tumblr if you want to say hi :)


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